Cloud adoption is a large part of digital transformation for many enterprises. But before cloud, came virtualization and decades of scaling virtual machines on physical systems to optimize the server hardware footprint of an enterprise data center. Today, virtualization along with private and public clouds are converging via direct and secure interconnection to provide even more efficient and scalable data center hybrid IT infrastructures.

A perfect example of this convergence is the collaboration between Equinix and VMware. Together, we are enabling private and secure hybrid cloud interconnection to VMware Cloud on AWS via Platform Equinix®. Users can establish multiple virtual private connections between on-premises vSphere environments and VMware Cloud on AWS using AWS Direct Connect and the Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric™ (ECX Fabric™). ECX Fabric allows organizations to reach VMware Cloud on AWS inside interconnected Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers, even if VMware Cloud on AWS is not local to your business location.

The software-defined data center meets public cloud

VMware is the industry’s number one virtual infrastructure provider, and the driver of the software-defined data center (SDDC). With VMware Cloud on AWS, the entire VMware SDDC is delivered as a service running in AWS on Amazon EC2 dedicated, elastic, bare-metal infrastructure. By enabling the rapid provisioning and optimization of VMware SDDC environments in AWS, IT operations can deliver the following capabilities to their users:

Resources (compute, storage, etc.) remain operationally consistent with vSphere-based clouds, and existing VMware technologies, tools and skillsets can be used to manage VMware Cloud on AWS.

VMware vSphere-based applications/workloads migrate seamlessly to VMware Cloud on AWS without conversions or re-architecture, lowering development time and costs.

VMware vMotion can rapidly migrate live virtual machines from a server on-premises to one on VMware Cloud on AWS with zero downtime and continuous service availability.

VMware SDDC capacity can be quickly scaled in the AWS Cloud to meet temporary, seasonal or unplanned demand.

On-demand business continuity and disaster recovery can be provisioned as a service with VMware Site Recovery for VMware Cloud on AWS.

Flexible consumption of VMware and AWS capabilities as a service is optimized to better align virtualization and cloud costs with business needs.

The ability to leverage AWS native services for application modernization once applications have been moved to the cloud

VMware Cloud on AWS via Platform Equinix

Many businesses do not have the ability to access or integrate both VMware and AWS infrastructures all in one place. VMware Cloud on AWS via Platform Equinix provides an “easy button” to enable access to all of these environments through a single interconnection and colocation platform. This means businesses can create a hybrid cloud infrastructure to seamlessly migrate and extend VMware applications/workloads from on-premises vSphere-based environments to VMware Cloud on AWS for less cost. It gives IT organizations the ability to expedite their hybrid cloud initiatives, such as application migration to the cloud, hybrid cloud application development, data center extension to meet on-demand capacity needs and hybrid cloud disaster recovery. The combined solution also enables users to consume AWS services in a more reliable, optimized and cost-effective way over high-performance, low-latency connections via AWS Direct Connect and the ECX Fabric™ (see diagram below):

Equinix is among AWS’s most strategic global cloud interconnection partners, with 24 AWS Direct Connect locations globally. Equinix is also the largest global interconnection provider to enable hybrid cloud deployments for businesses using on-premises vSphere environments and VMware Cloud on AWS.

VMware customers can now extend their on-premises environments into VMware Cloud on AWS via Platform Equinix without having to build new infrastructures. AWS customers who want to leverage VMware Cloud capabilities can now do so from a single interconnection platform by leveraging AWS Direct Connect and the Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric™ (ECX Fabric™).

VMware Cloud on AWS with Direct Connect and ECX Fabric also enables interconnection to various industry ecosystems, including multiple network service providers worldwide. The solution bypasses the public internet, delivering local, private, secure, high-performance interconnection to AWS on a global basis to reduce risk and comply with data privacy and data sovereignty laws. It delivers fast, predictable and reliable performance for multiple use cases, including: